Have later instalment to a series ruined previous instalments for you?

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I have to jump onto the Mass Effect bandwagon on this one.

I don't even particularly dislike Mass Effect 3, I thought it was actually mostly alright. It's just those last fifteen minutes that kill it for me (even with the extended cut ending).

I lost the hard drive with all my Mass Effect saves on it a few months ago, and I planned to replay the games start to finish again just in case the new one in development right now reads anything from the last three games' save files.

I got about halfway through the first game, then just couldn't go on. Even though I really love the series, I just couldn't continue onward knowing how little any of it actually mattered in the end.

The weird thing is that in any other series this wouldn't matter to me whatsoever. But the marketing for the Mass Effect series as a whole made such a huge deal out of decisions being incredibly important that it ended up kinda tainting things to me.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Just as groups should not be judged by individuals within the group, entire game series should not be judged by a bad game. For example, I think Final Fantasy XII was the laziest effort Square put into a FF title until XIII was released some years later. But does that invalidate all of the fun I had with FFIV, VI, VII, VIII, XI, and X? No, not at all. Likewise, just because FFX-2 was awful (story-wise, I'm of the opinion that the game was at least fun to play) doesn't mean I judge FFX any differently, or view it's flaws more harshly.

Final Fantasy may fall under a special category, since all of the games are inherently different from one another while only sharing a few common themes, I'll point to Dragon Age: Origins and say that I will always love it despite whatever misgivings I may have about Dragon Age II (I didn't love it, but I don't hate it now) or the upcoming Inquisition.

One bad game in a series shouldn't invalidate all of the fun that you've had with previous installments. I mean, I hated Uncharted 3 but I'm still looking forward to Uncharted 4. People that say "this game ruins the franchise" have always boggled my mind. I get being disappointed, but really, 'ruined the franchise' is pretty harsh.

Conversely, there ARE some games I have a hard time playing after experiencing their sequels, such as Mass Effect. Don't get me wrong, love the story and the deeper RPG mechanics, but the combat feels pretty archaic to me now after playing 2 and 3.

 

[Eve Charm]

Hmm Resident evil 4 HD ultimate edition. Let's get everyone exciting about their favorite game getting it's 3rd HD release but this one is going to be better then ever. For the first time ever 60 fps, the best resolution ever, but no lets not optimize our engine for the game so all these awesome features have to be turned off for it to run even on the most powerful pc's I can run RE 6 on high and more, can't make RE4 do anything but chug on half speed...

Other then that hmm maybe clock tower 3 for not being point and click ;p

 

[ExtraDebit]

Mass Effect 3, the simple fact of knowing that all I do and choose boils down to red,green,blue then you die just doesn't sit well with me.

If I ever had to choose a game that fucked up the most in an ending it would be mass effect 3.

 

[Avaholic03]

The Halo and Call of Duty series.

I'm pretty sure they just do focus groups about "what did you like about past game" and then repeat the hell of out of that stuff in future games until it completely loses its effect. They just throw plot and pacing right out the window to accommodate more "wow" set-pieces and action stuff. And as a result, you get desensitized to the stuff that made the earlier games special so they eventually seem boring or unremarkable.