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

[Autumnflame]

I think the most popular vote will be ME3 specifically for the ending.

It hurt alot of people and it stains the series as a whole

 

[spartandude]

Mass Effect 3 did sadly ruin the series for me. I tried to replay them not that long ago but i really wasnt enjoying them that much at all.

Also Pokemon ruined gen 1 for me, not because recent games were bad, quite the opposite in fact. I just cant stand to play Gen 1 anymore due to all the improvments made.... that gameplay....uggh

 

[carnex]

Ruin? Never. I was disappointed numerous times but one part never ruined the rest for me, Every part has to stand on it's own.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

ME3, most definitely. In most series, the instalments stand on their own and a bad game doesn't bring down the rest. In Mass Effect, a lot of the emotional investment went into what would result from my choices and actions. What kind of universe I would bring about, good or bad. ME3 pissed away a borderline unique chance to make good on a gaming phenomenon, a huge, years-long set up was tossed by the wayside in what appears to have been a decision made by a couple of people knowing full well what they were doing. If they had made branching, different endings, things would have been very different. All they needed was a few callbacks, multiple ways to defeat the Reapers (each with the possibility of failing), and characters that once gone, couldn't be replaced. The whole game wouldn't even have had to be that branching itself. If it were that would have been amazing, but it could have gotten away with not that much differentiation - as long as it had a satisfying, tailored ending. It would have been a gaming legend, honestly, quoted as an example of excellent storytelling and agency. Instead, some use it as an example of "gamer entitlement" while others post in threads to say it was the one game that has ever ruined an entire series for them. Bravo, Bioware.

 

[Agayek]

- ME3 had a terrible ending, but it didn't ruin previous installments, nor even ME3. It was just a disappointing end. Playing it again as far as the beam/Marauder Shields is still fine.

Eh. Accepting the Catalyst, and the information it presents, as canon for Mass Effect retroactively makes the entire plot of ME1 retarded and nonsensical and undermines the (extremely limited) contributions ME2 made to the overall narrative. It doesn't "ruin" the games (I still semi-regularly play through the whole series), but it does severely weaken one of their strongest elements.

And oddly enough, that's the closest I can come to saying an unfortunate sequel ruined its preceding games. Typically, I'd just ignore or head-canon away the problematic elements and play the good games without issue.

 

[Agayek]

ME3, most definitely. In most series, the instalments stand on their own and a bad game doesn't bring down the rest. In Mass Effect, a lot of the emotional investment went into what would result from my choices and actions. What kind of universe I would bring about, good or bad. ME3 pissed away a borderline unique chance to make good on a gaming phenomenon, a huge, years-long set up was tossed by the wayside in what appears to have been a decision made by a couple of people knowing full well what they were doing. If they had made branching, different endings, things would have been very different. All they needed was a few callbacks, multiple ways to defeat the Reapers (each with the possibility of failing), and characters that once gone, couldn't be replaced. The whole game wouldn't even have had to be that branching itself. If it were that would have been amazing, but it could have gotten away with not that much differentiation - as long as it had a satisfying, tailored ending. It would have been a gaming legend, honestly, quoted as an example of excellent storytelling and agency. Instead, some use it as an example of "gamer entitlement" while others post in threads to say it was the one game that has ever ruined an entire series for them. Bravo, Bioware.

Honestly, all ME3 really needed at launch was the EC final cinematics and the complete removal of the Catalyst as a character. Basically, if it had gone like this:

1) Anderson and TIM face-off on the Citadel
2) Thing is resolved and Anderson dies, then Hacket calls to complain about the Crucible not firing
3) Shepard staggers over to the console, but instead of collapsing into a magic elevator, activates it
4) Prothean VI appears and says "Yo dude, you can either destroy the Reapers at the cost of your life and the Mass Relays, or upload your mind into the Reapers and control them"
5) Shepard chooses, and the Destroy/Control ending from the EC plays

It would have been damn near perfect. There'd be a few minor issues to address with that, but they can be handwaved (by author and player) for the sake of plot pretty easily (the only really glaring one being the presence of TIM and Anderson on the Citadel).

Unfortunately, Hudson and Walters are incompetent hacks with no idea what they're doing and no understanding of the game or franchise for which they were working, so we got the Starchild's self-contradictory "logic" and completely nonsensical motivations, not to mention thematic- and narrative-wrecking existence. If that thing was gone completely, ME3 would have ended extremely damn well and the series as a whole would have gone down as an instant classic and a prime example of interactive storytelling.

Ah well, at least I'll never have to deal with Hudson ruining the potential of any other games.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

snip

Honestly, all ME3 really needed at launch was the EC final cinematics and the complete removal of the Catalyst as a character. Basically, if it had gone like this:

1) Anderson and TIM face-off on the Citadel
2) Thing is resolved and Anderson dies, then Hacket calls to complain about the Crucible not firing
3) Shepard staggers over to the console, but instead of collapsing into a magic elevator, activates it
4) Prothean VI appears and says "Yo dude, you can either destroy the Reapers at the cost of your life and the Mass Relays, or upload your mind into the Reapers and control them"
5) Shepard chooses, and the Destroy/Control ending from the EC plays

It would have been damn near perfect. There'd be a few minor issues to address with that, but they can be handwaved (by author and player) for the sake of plot pretty easily (the only really glaring one being the presence of TIM and Anderson on the Citadel).

Unfortunately, Hudson and Walters are incompetent hacks with no idea what they're doing and no understanding of the game or franchise for which they were working, so we got the Starchild's self-contradictory "logic" and completely nonsensical motivations, not to mention thematic- and narrative-wrecking existence. If that thing was gone completely, ME3 would have ended extremely damn well and the series as a whole would have gone down as an instant classic and a prime example of interactive storytelling.

Ah well, at least I'll never have to deal with Hudson ruining the potential of any other games.

I think I may have been confusing what I wanted and expected of ME3 with the bare minimum ME3 could have gotten away with, but at least it's clear that Starchild and his bullshit were completely unnecessary. What you describe is possibly something I would have accepted as a fix for the ending as it was. If I had gotten that, I'd have gone "ok, so my choices still don't mean shit, but at least they got rid of that horrible deus ex machina monologuing asshole". Another thing that annoyed me greatly was that in a game known for dialogue trees you couldn't even argue with him, in what I can only assume was an attempt to maintain suspension of disbelief.

 

[Vault101]

usually its fine if I can just pick a perfectly acceptable end point..like Terminator 2 or Aliens or the point before your favorite show jumps the shark (assuming you can end it on an episode/season without a cliff hanger)

but then (you knew it was coming) in Mass Effects case it can't (and wasn't supposed to) end with ME1 or ME2 hence why 3 was such a spectacular failure

I loved replying rhe games not only because I loved the characters and story..but because it was always building up to the best outcome..that one thing

Honestly, all ME3 really needed at launch was the EC final cinematics and the complete removal of the Catalyst as a character. Basically, if it had gone like this:

1) Anderson and TIM face-off on the Citadel
2) Thing is resolved and Anderson dies, then Hacket calls to complain about the Crucible not firing
3) Shepard staggers over to the console, but instead of collapsing into a magic elevator, activates it
4) Prothean VI appears and says "Yo dude, you can either destroy the Reapers at the cost of your life and the Mass Relays, or upload your mind into the Reapers and control them"
5) Shepard chooses, and the Destroy/Control ending from the EC plays

It would have been damn near perfect. There'd be a few minor issues to address with that, but they can be handwaved (by author and player) for the sake of plot pretty easily (the only really glaring one being the presence of TIM and Anderson on the Citadel).

Unfortunately, Hudson and Walters are incompetent hacks with no idea what they're doing and no understanding of the game or franchise for which they were working, so we got the Starchild's self-contradictory "logic" and completely nonsensical motivations, not to mention thematic- and narrative-wrecking existence. If that thing was gone completely, ME3 would have ended extremely damn well and the series as a whole would have gone down as an instant classic and a prime example of interactive storytelling.

Ah well, at least I'll never have to deal with Hudson ruining the potential of any other games.

exactly

its just baffling that the fans could very easyly come up with a million better ways to do it...now if you looked at them in any other context they might have been silly (some of them really were great) but it was so fucking easy...SO easy to avoid what happened

not to be good..but just to be acceptible on a baseline level

out of curiosity did Hudson leave or was that just you swear off future Bioware games?

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Another vote for ME3 and I didn't even play it.

No matter how much I enjoyed the first two installments, the lingering specter that is laughably called an ending would loom over any attempt to replay those games.

If the series wasn't essentially a three act story with each game being a separate part of the narrative it wouldn't have been so bad.

That said, I can still enjoy Origins despite its lackluster sequel due to the lack of continuation of the characters.

 

[Something Amyss]

I sometimes have trouble going back to older installments if the newer ones are sufficiently improved. Does that count?

This is generally the only way it applies to me as well. And even then, it has to be a pretty significant improvement and/or I wasn't terribly interested in the previous one to begin with. I can't think of any games I've disliked to such a degree that they retroactively ruined my enjoyment of their franchise.

Indeed. I might question my interest in future titles, but I don't get this idea that it'd retroactively harm the other games. Same with other media. Hell, I have TV shows where I just watch certain seasons because the others are AWFUL, but I don't hate the prior seasons because of that.

 

[Agayek]

out of curiosity did Hudson leave or was that just you swear off future Bioware games?

As far as I'm aware, Hudson is still spreading his taint all over Bioware. I'm just never going to buy a game from them again; not after being burned to one degree or another on the last 3 games they put out. ME3 + DA2 + TOR together pretty much entirely drained whatever brand loyalty I had left after EA bought them. They'd have to put out a game with a public response on par with Baldur's Gate 2 to get me to buy one of their games again.

I think I may have been confusing what I wanted and expected of ME3 with the bare minimum ME3 could have gotten away with, but at least it's clear that Starchild and his bullshit were completely unnecessary. What you describe is possibly something I would have accepted as a fix for the ending as it was. If I had gotten that, I'd have gone "ok, so my choices still don't mean shit, but at least they got rid of that horrible deus ex machina monologuing asshole". Another thing that annoyed me greatly was that in a game known for dialogue trees you couldn't even argue with him, in what I can only assume was an attempt to maintain suspension of disbelief.

That's fair. I wanted the kind of expansive and reactive and deep ending too, but I've worked enough in software that I was able to acknowledge ahead of time that the ending would ultimately boil down to, essentially, ME2's ending with some expanded cutscenes to wrap things up, and I adjusted my expectations accordingly. I more-or-less expected what we got, just with a significantly higher degree of writing and design skill in the execution.

Don't get me wrong, if they had surprised me and gone for the branching tree ending influenced by all your choices in the series thus far, I'd have been ecstatic and I'd vastly prefer that, but the reality of the situation is that even if the devs really, really wanted to, they wouldn't be able to justify that level of work to the corporate bean counters when it wouldn't meaningfully effect the ROI.

 

[Evonisia]

Never, I still like Call of Duty 4, Saints Row 2, Battlefield 2, Unreal 2K4, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (although Blacklist did manage to show good improvements), Hitman Blood Money, Duke Nukem 3D, Serious Sam (2 was fucking terrible) and Postal 2 for example.

The sequel being bad certainly sucks as I probably wont have more of what I liked about it in the first place but all those reasons remain intact in the previous games that I can just go back to.

This is generally the only way it applies to me as well. And even then, it has to be a pretty significant improvement and/or I wasn't terribly interested in the previous one to begin with. I can't think of any games I've disliked to such a degree that they retroactively ruined my enjoyment of their franchise.

It doesn't necessarily have to be an awful sequel. My example was that line put me off which is silly but truthful. I don't like Infinite but everything besides that line didn't ruin the previous games for me (in fact, certain things like Elizabeth using the BioShock 1 wrench made me smile with glee).

 

[SilverBullets000]

Mass Eff-oh, okay, everyone has said that one already.

Alright, for me, it was Metroid: Other M. The game subtly retcons the existence of the Prime games and turns what people interpreted to be a strong character into a talkative sniveling incompetent joke. Not only that, but everything about the game felt like a downgrade from Retro's Prime games to begin with: The enemy designs are less detailed and look as if they belong in a gamecube game, it's unbelievably linear, awkward controls, bland locations, sudden and unneeded PTSD for the sake of drama, awful story partially lifted from a previous handheld title, lack of new suits and powerups and horrible characterization all across the board. Not to mention their portrayal of Adam makes Fusion seem a whole lot creepier than they realized it would. Should I even bring up how many times Samus had fought Ridley before that game?
There was just so much bad in a game that had so much potential. It was very disappointing and made me want to just stop following the franchise all together. Hopefully they'll have learned their lesson with the next game.

 

[The Wonder of the net]

I have to say i had three things ruin things for me like this. Gundam Seed ruined the gundam shows for me (The writing is baaaad, sooo bad. Though i like how its a fast forwarded sequel to the original gundam), Mass effect 2(Due to severe over play on my part) ruined the rest of it for me, and The .hack//gu games ruined the other .hack games for me (just because of the chunkiness that was fixed in gu)

 

[Movitz]

Well, the thing that came closests would be Avatar the Last Airbender being ruined by Legend of Korra. But it wasn't, 'cause Korra fucked up to much.

Allow me to explain. (SPOILERS!)

For starters, I think Korra season 1 was okey. It was nowhere near Last Airbender goodness, with the boring shipping, lackluster action in Pro-bending and Union City was a boring setting that the characters never left, but it wasn't terribly bad.

Now, Season 2 on the other hand, boy did they go full retard there!

1. WHat's up with the whole "Spirit world and human world is seperated, because of the Avatar doing some stuff, so now spirits can't enter the human world"? Spirits entered the human world the whole time in the Last Airbender, without much of a bother. In the comics taking place directly (more or less) after the finale of the last airbender, Aang locates a spirit in the spirit world and convinces her to appear in a specific place in the human world. This doesn't match what's stated in Korra.

2. Continuing about the spirit world: when the hell did it become like the warp in Warhammer 40k? I mean, yeah, there were danger in the Spirit world, with evil spirits like that facestealing spider-thing, but from what we saw in the Last Airbender, it was a sorta stable place. In Korra, the place is suddenly at the whims of mortals emotions: when Korra was in the spirit world (and for some reason got transformed to a 5-year old version of herself.. yeah, I don't get it either) and she got upset, some nearby spirits suddenly turned hostile. While it wasn't stated that this was impossible in the last airbender, and Korra is the avatar and thus have more power than ordinary people and the super-evil spirit was nearing his escape (even though this explanation would raise some questions), it doesn't fit the overall spirit (hah!) from the earlier series.

3. What is up with all the Deus ex machinas? I know the last airbender had that problem too, but if I remember correctly it was 2 times (In the Season 1 final and season 3 final) and the second time it was sort of given an explanation (Aang sticking to his values and not compromising, thus being given by God/the Universe/fate/that giant lionturtle the means to complete his mission). Not so in Korra. "So you got beaten by the anti-avatar, lost connection to the spirit that made you the avatar, and thus should not really be the avatar anymore? Oh, don't worry, just sit in this here tree and all will be well! What, you still couldn't defeat the big, boring godzilla-like monster pummeling the city? Well, luckily, Tenzin's daughter is some sort of super powerful-thingy, so the day can still be won!"

4. I do not care for the Avatar origin story. In the original, the Avatar just seemed like a fact of life, a little help from up high to help the mortal world stay in balance. In a graphic novel supposed to explain what happened to Aang between Season 2 and 3 (basically, Aang travels through the spirit world, reconnecting with his former lives as to not lose his bond with them), Aang asks one of his earlier lives why the Avatar reincarnates as a human, instead of being an immortal spirit. Now being the upbeat, humanistic series that it is, the answer he gets is that the avatar reincarnates as a human to form a bond with the world and people he is supposed to protect. It more or less seems that in the beginning, some divine spirit chose to be born into the mortal world. This doesn't mix with the origin story in Korra, where the avatar exists solely because some Alladin-wannabe fucked up and disturbed the spirit of order in her battle with the spirit of disorder.

5. Why is Korra such a weakling? It seems Korra's arc was written to appeal to weak, unsecure and fragile teenage girls, always fucking up, not really making any progress but still - and God knows how - triumphing over her opponents. This doesn't fit her character and it makes for a bad story. An example: Korra lost her powers in the finale of Season 1, and was going to jump down a cliff, ending her life. Suddenly Aang appears and tells her that, because she has gone through some really shitty times, she has now connected with her spiritual side or something. What kind of message is that? "Unless you suffer and break down, you can't advance as a person"? That's some emo bullshit if I ever heard any!


Still, since it fuck up so much, it's basically a whole, different story, so ignoring it while watching the original series is not that hard. And The Last Airbender being a more or less self-contained story doesn't hurt either.

EDIT: And now I realize this thread was about games, and just games. Boy, do I feel silly.

I guess Godfather the game 2 ruined Godfather the game 1. Mostly because while Godfather 2 was entertaining and had a nice flow to it, Godfather 1 punished you every time you didn't do things they way it wanted you to do them.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II ruined The Force Unleashed for me in a very specific way. I could still play the original a bit for the fun of being an unstoppable bad-ass fighting card-board cut-outs but in terms of what Force Unleashed could have been, the sequel just utterly shits on what the first one was. The canonical ending wraps up the first game, leaving Force Unleashed wide open to fill in the role of a potentially great anthology series. Instead we get a direct sequel...The Old Republic and various other un-explored portions of Star Wars past is littered with potentially hundreds of over-powered Jedi and Sith to play as but no...Someone apparently demanded more Starkiller...

 

[FPLOON]

God of War: Ascension almost did that for me, actually... I mean, I understood what they had to do gameplay-wise, in term of where the game took place in the GOW story timeline... However, when coming from the original trilogy to Ascension, it was kinda jarring for me... I could say the same thing for Arkham Origins, however I've never played that game and the only person I know who's played it hasn't even played Arkham Asylum or Arkham City yet...

 

[RedDeadFred]

Assassin's Creed. They all lack replay value imo, but the latest entry (without the bad spinoffs) always kills the freshness of the previous game(s). Black Flag just blows them all out of the water and ruins the other games by being better rather than being awful, which ruined the entire series for me since I started realizing how annoying AC was after a second play through of the first game. And to name a few others..

The second AC did that to me for the first one. However, as much as I like Black Flag (my personal GOTY last year), I still love playing through ACII because I enjoyed the story the most in that game, plus I find the story missions more fun than in the other games. The only reason I like Black Flag more is because I love being a pirate. They are completely different games.