Games that have lost their way

[gamernerdtg2]

Metal Gear - It was a tactical espionage game. Along comes MGS, and it became a digital soap opera. I lost complete interest in Solid Snake and consequently the whole series. Yes, the basic gameplay from the NES is all there( and improved upon) but the story surrounding the game changed it too much. I prefered it with pixels and text so that I could imagine myself as Snake.

Contra - It was a side scrolling, platforming, arcade style shooter. Shattered soldier was apparently a great game, but they made it more of a science-fiction horror game with babies heads on aliens and what-not. It was almost like Contra meets Dante's Inferno, but way back in the PS2 days.

Prince Of Persia - I loved the original, and the SNES version. I loved the Sands of Time. I loved the 360/PS3 version with Elika. Hatedthe two sequels to Sands of Time that tried to make the Prince into a dark bad-ass when he was never that kind of character. It was like Prince of Persia meets Mortal Kombat, and it annoyed me. We have enough dark bad assery withing gaming as it is. We may never get a sequel to Prince of Persia with Elika.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Kinda surprised to not see Hitman on here, so I'll throw it in there.

Hitman: Went from being a sandbox choose-your-method-of-death assassin game that captured my imagination to being... Splinter Cell.

Tomb Raider: Went from being an action/adventure title to being Uncharted.

Also, I don't mind change. I still enjoy Hitman: Absolution and I prefer Mass Effect 2 over the first title any day. It's a shame that Castlevania's not a platformer anymore, but when the Metroidvania-style ones make a shitzillion dollars, there's no reason for them to go back to basics, although they tried with Dracula X Chronicles. They also tried with Castlevania 64/Legacy of Darkness, but I think I'm the only person who liked that game series.

Its been a while but I have played all the main Final Fantasy titles (MMOs exception) and quite a few spin offs and never remember playing a party of 5 its has always gone between 3 and 4 with 4 being the traditional size, I think it was 7 that first switched to parties of 3. I dont think just changing party sizes and how you control them constitutes losing its way especially when they change things up between each title anyway some for better and some for worse.

Actually, FFIV allowed you a max party of 5.

 

[xPixelatedx]

Castlevania (which is now god of War)

Metroid (which is now an FPS. Even if you like that it's fine, just not my cup of tea and still technically a huge departure)

Resident Evil (which now has a giant "be anything and everything western" boner)

Zelda (this game went form being a real head-scratcher and one of the most rewarding adventures to typical Nintendo handholding. Is slowly phasing out exploration and anything that could even be remotely mistaken for difficulty of any kind. You'll never get another one like OoT or Majora's Mask... EVER!)

Sonic (Nothing I can say that hasn't been said a thousand times before)

Devil May Cry (Not terrible now, but still not DMC at all)

Final Fantasy (The entire game now is a pretty hallway... there isn't anymore to say)

Starfox (Went from being one of the best aerial combat games to a furry fanfic. I don't say that because it involves anthropomorphic animals, I say that because it involves anthropomorphic animals and it's AWFUL.

Capcom vs. Games (A good one hasn't been made in a decade. MvsC3 was more a travesty then anything else, and just showed how much better sprites looked then stylized polygons)

Turok (The last one made was about a Space marine.. yeah.)

 

[Spiderfro]

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.

Glad I'm not the only one here to think that. I don't hate skyrim, but it's very disappointing how much potential they missed, just to squeeze in prettier walls to lick.

It's a very shallow game, and I didn't realize that until people who WEREN'T neck deep in TES lore started pointing it out to me.

 

[Ascend]

Ghost Recon :Went from harsh permadeath squad based tactical shooter to generic Spunkgargleweewee,turret sections and all.

 

[astrav1]

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

How so? It's a platforming game about speed. Anything after Adventure 2 and before Colors I can understand.

 

[Vault101]

what was so great about Mass Effect as an RPG anyway?....ME1 isnt exactly my favorite

 

[bug_of_war]

Mass Effect (went from RPG to action)

I've played all three Mass Effect games, and I'm kind of surprised people defend the RPG aspect of the first one so vigorously. I mean, if I had to choose between a simpler, yet more accessible, gameplay that had a greater focus on action, and gameplay that emphasizes "RPG elements" that just come off as obtuse and unnecessary , I'm pretty sure which one I'd choose. Personally, I don't think the "RPG elements" have EVER been that great in the ME series, but at least the last two didn't feel like shoving that shit down your gullet.

Agreed, the RPG elements were craaaaaaaaap in the first Mass Effect. If anything, the games got better when they dropped a majority of the RPG bits in favour for making the weapons and abilities feel powerful.

OT: As much as I love the Assassins Creed series, they have totally lost their way in the sense of it's origins. In the first game, most of what you did required you to be stealthy, while the combat wasn't difficult, it still pushed stealth so much more than the latter games. AC2 was alright, but some BIG assassination target missions made Ezio just walk up to them and force you to go into combat. Brotherhood lost it's way when they gave you the assassin button, as well as the introduction of the 100% sync side bonus things. Revelations was just Brotherhood only with tower defence. And AC3, while fun took away ALL stealth elements in favour of Connor being an unstoppable force in combat. There were missions in the third game that required stealth, but they were too few and far inbetween.

Assassin's Creed, love the games, but they totally should no longer be called Assassin's, as they are no longer stealthy, and you can use your assassin apprentices to do the work for ya.

 

[Bashfluff]

Zelda: Thank God I'm not the only one who hated Skyward Sword. It was lazy, cheap, and unfun.

Resident Evil 4: They had found nirvana--great controls, a nice blend of action and horror, good QTE's, and fabulous STYLE. And then they started taking it seriously, cranked up the action, spammed QTE's to the point where they were bad again, and they didn't change the controls to suit the new changes, making them horrible.

I could go on for hours, but at this point, it's hard to think of SPINOFFS that haven't lost there way! Paper Mario and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (to a much lesser extent, but still), anyone?

 

[RevRaptor]

Shining force, Fans have been wanting a decent shining force sequel ever since the megadrive days and after the umpteenth lazy hack n' slasher we finally Get a new shining force in the shining series and the bastards don't release it outside of Japan.

 

[dmv]

It's funny because I feel like lost planet and deadspace are swapping genres. I think this is the effect of cod/bf of publishers experimenting to try and figure out how they could channel that type of success.

 

[votemarvel]

Well that's kind of the thing, people wanted the RPG aspect improved and polished, I don't think they wanted them to become stripped away (ME2) or simply tacked on (ME3) I'm willing to bet that the people who prefer ME1 are people who liked that ME was an RPG first and a shooter second. Warts and all.

Absolutely spot on.

I liked in Mass Effect 1 that stats were as important to the combat as my ability to place a cross-hair. I liked that the dice roll was involved. What I would have liked to have seen added was that to be taken into account when going for head-shot or aiming at limbs.

To be honest though other than people wanting only their skills at a placing a cross-hair to count, I don't see what was wrong about the combat in Mass Effect 1. You enter cover, you pop out to shoot and then drop back down when your shields begin to drop. Exactly the same as in the two sequels.

Also in ME1 I never entered cover when I didn't intend to, something ME2 and 3 enjoy doing if you are running and go anywhere near something that could be considered cover. A lot of the time that being an exposed wall in the middle of a fire-fight.

 

[Zetatrain]

what was so great about Mass Effect as an RPG anyway?....ME1 isnt exactly my favorite

I think people were pissed off not because they thought the RPG mechanics were great, but rather because they could have been great and instead Bioware scraped most of the RPG elements rather than improve them. For instance, the inventory system was shit but that could have easily been remedied by dividing the inventory into different sections (armor, weapons, mods, etc.) and by increasing the scroll speed. Another complaint I remember was that a lot of the planets you could explore were practically empty. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be too hard add a bunch of wildlife or pirates to these planets and maybe decrease the size of these planets a little bit.

 

[BakedZnake]

Dead Space (went from Survival Horror to action)

It was never survival horror. It can't be horror if you are a walking death machine. It had atmosphere and jumpscares but nothing about it screamed survival or horror.

http://www.ea.com/dead-space
EA would like to disagree with you there.

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

I would have to disagree with you on C&C if you picked up red alert 1 and then played red alert 3, they both play the same (mass a lot of your toughest unit - attack other base - spam more units) and same old campy story with hawt girls in next to nohing. Just to prove red alert 1 was only good for its time, and they've done nothing to improve upon the gameplay. So in fact C&C series stick soooo closely to what it was to begin with that it sucks now due to lack of movement away from the path or some shit along those lines