Series that has gone downhill for you?
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It's certainly not Nostalgia telling me that Fallout 2 was better than 3.Nostalgia said:
And as for what hasn't gone downhill...
Hm...
Total Annihilation 2 was pretty cool. Even though it had a different name (Supreme Commander) it was basically the same game. Very good series reboot, almost 10 years after the first one. ^^
Third...ed...tokoolforranch said:
Halo: CE was the peak, which is a weird thing.
Usually the middle game is the peak. But apparently 2 and 3 tried to climb up the mountain in a drunk haze and just slid down into a city dump.
Hm... too many to list. Almost all games have gone downhill for me.
I guess this is why I retrogame.
I guess this is why I retrogame.
Don't hang me, but the Metroid series... see, I can play Super Metroid with the same sort of glee, challenge, excitement, and sometimes fear, as I had so many years ago when I first got it. The Prime series is visually stunning, and very fun, but... once played through a single time, my interest in playing it again has been quite diminished by walking through that much territory, wasting the same PITA enemies that always respawn in tiny corridors, and by the constant feeling of always having to backtrack for one tiny upgrade to progress mere inches through a side tunnel. They're great the first time, but replayability has been absolutely murdered and simple advancement always feels like a slog.
At least they reinvented and therefore improved the controls for Corruption but still... the godawful Metroid sections were still the worst, there were always more than enough to be a drastic slowdown, and they were always hard to lock onto. In the Prime series, Metroids were no longer the challenging regular enemies that spiced up the final run to the ultimate showdown, they were pitiful swarming larvae with the annoyance dial turned up to 11.
Plus the Space Pirates were idiots for always building Metroid tanks with nice fragile glass walls without any barriers between the tanks and the controls for the tanks, and without any clear lockdown procedures. At /least/ some turrets for escaped Metroid suppression, anything!
At least they reinvented and therefore improved the controls for Corruption but still... the godawful Metroid sections were still the worst, there were always more than enough to be a drastic slowdown, and they were always hard to lock onto. In the Prime series, Metroids were no longer the challenging regular enemies that spiced up the final run to the ultimate showdown, they were pitiful swarming larvae with the annoyance dial turned up to 11.
Plus the Space Pirates were idiots for always building Metroid tanks with nice fragile glass walls without any barriers between the tanks and the controls for the tanks, and without any clear lockdown procedures. At /least/ some turrets for escaped Metroid suppression, anything!
I meant the feeling, not the user. ;PNostalgia said:I never said that. I was making an observation. Seems like your list for things that are actually still good would be far, far, far shorter than what isn't anymore, hence that comment.
And hey, look! You could only think of one thing.
Granted, the feeling might be telling me Daggerfall's better than Oblivion, but maybe not.
And I could certainly think of a few more things.
Probably.
Maybe.
Sorta... ._.
You got me. The only "currently-most-recent" sequels I can think of that are the best in a game series better are for game series that don't exist anymore: MDK, Descent, things like that.
Even game series that are still strong don't have a current sequel that's the best in the series (Mario most notably. I get the feeling most people who played Super Mario 64 would prefer it over Galaxy.)
The whole "band simulation" genre, on the one hand you have Rock Band who has a good thing and has sort of adopted the whole "if it's not broken, don't fix it." Then there's the Guitar Hero series getting the good ol' Activision treatment, "You like this game? Here have it again with a different subtitle?"
I humbly disagree, but we're all entitled to our opinions.Valiance said:
Agreed. And you conveniently picked 4 that I feel most "mixed" about rather than "oh, these are TERRIBLE now."Dragonrabbit said:
Zelda is certainly debatable. I have very many mixed feelings about it, but I still think OoT is the best in the series.
GTA is debatable, I really loved 3, but vice city felt samey to me, and gta 4 still functions fine...Just I don't see how it really makes the game better aside from giving it a physics engine.
Civilization, well, the new Colonization game was pretty good, but it's exactly the same as the one I played in the mid 90's.
SSB, it's a very...odd feeling, honestly. I want to say "it got terrible" but it's more like "they're different games for different things and can't really be compared in the same fashion." I'd talk about it here but it'd be very offtopic.
And Elder Scrolls, well, I never played Morrowind, so my opinion holds no merit. I do remember Daggerfall being much more entertaining than Oblivion, but it might be my nostalgic memories.
Which ones do you prefer?
Well, I know you meant the feeling, but I never said anything about it, but I do think it might have a lot to do with it. Not necessarily in your case, or in others. (Hi Sonic!)Valiance said:
Over time, we grow used to this being the ordinary. Mario 64, for example, was the step into 3D plaforming for its series, and it did it extremely well while staying pretty true to the formula. Back then, I'm sure that was amazing for Mario fans, hence they might feel like they had a much better gaming experience. Through nostalgia, the scope of what it was at the time, and its age give it this.
It's much easier to judge comparatively when games are closer to each other in age. For example, of the 4 Sonic games on the Genesis, I believe Sonic and Knuckles are better than 1 through 3. (I know more came out for Genesis, but I'm not including Sonic Spinball and such for the same reason I don't count Mario Tennis, or other spin-offs)
Sonic itself is probably a bad example because it's regarding as one of the best franchises that lost everything it had, but it wasn't my point.
I don't know how to wrap this up.
To be honest, I think I have to agree with you. I recently got into the Prime series because I don't own a GCN myself, and got to borrow the system. Playing through Prime 1 so far, I see little to no replay value in it, unless you haven't touched the game in years. It's possibly because I started playing on hard mode, and enemies take that much longer to kill, and it becomes somewhat tedious, but if that's the case, then what replay value is there when killing most trash mob enemies are nothing more than being tedious?Ossum said:
And the fact that puzzle solving and exploration/collecting are my favorite parts of gameplay, once you do it and know where everything is, it's no longer fun as what it used to be.
Perhaps I'm just really sore about it at the moment because I really dislike the Phazon Mines.
I'm pretty sure I understand you. Nostalgia clouds most people's views, but sometimes it's really true.Nostalgia said:
Like how I prefer BF1942 for no good reason when the game has had sequels that were EXACTLY THE GAME BUT BETTER, and I'd rather play the original because, well, it's the original, I already know everything about it, it was really interesting when it was first there, and now the concept was implemented "slightly better" and I don't give a damn because it's just, not as cool anymore.
But I liked Fallout 2 when it did the same thing as the Battlefield series - Take the same game and improve on it.
I think Sonic 3 is about as good as S&K, and out of the original 4, they're all very good but my least favorite is Sonic 2. Then again, I never played all the way though S&K, and I'd probably like it even more than 3 if I had.
And I do know what you mean - Sonic 2, 3, and S&K were all improvements that got steadily better. I've noticed that personally, series usually peak at the first sequel. (Fallout 2, Mechwarrior 2, Master of Orion 2, Crazy Taxi 2, HotD 2, MDK 2, Diablo II, (prediction!) UT2K4, Tribes 2, etc, etc.)
Sonic wasn't like that - it was getting better and then they just stopped. I agree with you - it's not nostalgia stopping people from liking the new games. They just aren't as good.
For me, it comes down to the fact that some of the games I love from a while ago really have no re-iteration in today's world.
Fair enough. I can relate.Valiance said:
I'm sure you know how much I hate this Pokemon nostalgia plaguing this site by all the self-proclaimed old skool fans, when I was probably ten times more into Pokemon during that time than they ever were.
I just wish series that get better as time goes on get the recognition they deserve rather than constantly get spit on because they grew out of it and dismiss it, for whatever stupid reason it might be, because most of the time, it's hardly legitimate.