That game series/franchise you used to love, that you think have destroyed themselves?

[AndrewC]

Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Guitar Hero, CoD, Need for Speed (ignoring Hot Pursuit cause that was excellent.)

 

[Hijax]

and the way they assign renegade points is god damned retarded.

+1

Seriously, what the hell is up with the morality system in ME2?

 

[Imbechile]

Resident evil after 3.
World of warcraft. War3 had such a great story, but WOW fucked it in the ***
The Elder scrolls. Oblivion made me hate the series so much that I want Skyrim to be a piece of shit and the series to got on a nice and quiet sleep for a decade.

 

[run_forrest_run]

I love the Ratchet and Clank games and while they've yet to get terrible Insomniac should have quit after the Third one. Ratchet and Clank 3 was the best game in the series and not a single game that followed in the series has topped it.

 

[standokan]

Pokemon, I love the franchise but the pokemons are getting worse and worse

Basicly, pretty much any franchise gets worse and worse at one point.

 

[minarri]

In my book, Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side really needs to stop. The first one, despite its numerous faults, helped get me into otome games for which I'm grateful. The second one was pretty enjoyable. The third one, however, was a bucket of tripe I wish I hadn't bought. Please stop.

Also I'm definitely over Final Fantasy. Nowadays it feels to me as if they're just going through the motions. (If they must continue can they please work with Sakaguchi again?)

I still love Pokemon though. The black version, though not perfect, has been keeping me amused since last fall.

 

[KaosuHamoni]

Devil May Cry. One of my favourite IP's of all time, and they handed it to Ninja Theory!? WHY!?

Although I suppose that time will tell if they screw it up. You better not, Ninja Theory... I'll never forgive you. =_=

[sub][sub]I suppose it's not all bad, due to the fact that I've found solace with Ninja Gaiden. =D[/sub][/sub]

 

[Daverson]

Command and Conquer.
That series was ruined when EA got their dirty claws into it.
Right up until C&C3 it was witty, immersive and fun, then it got turned into a "streamlined", "revolutionary" RTS with far too much emphasis on online play, and its "All Star Cast" was incredibly meh.
Seriously EA, you disgust me.

Pretty much this.

The original Red Alert was the first "proper" PC game I played, so it's not hard to see why the series is always going to be special for me. Hell, I nearly religiously played the RA2 when I was a teenager...

Then, Generals happened.

Ok, a lot of people like Generals, that's fine by me. But as far as I'm concerned, it's when the games stopped being CnC, and just turned into a poor man's Starcraft. The simple controls had been changed in favour of things like research, vehicle upgrades and special abilities.

Credit where credit's due, RA3 tried to make a move back to the simpler mechanics that made the original games great, but the campaign and unit choice really felt like a step backwards to me. (Tanks, for example. All three faction's basic tanks have some ridiculous gimmick attached to them, why can't a tank just be a tank!)

 

[Neverhoodian]

Command and Conquer.
That series was ruined when EA got their dirty claws into it.
Right up until C&C3 it was witty, immersive and fun, then it got turned into a "streamlined", "revolutionary" RTS with far too much emphasis on online play, and its "All Star Cast" was incredibly meh.
Seriously EA, you disgust me.

Quoted for truth. I will never truly forgive EA for what they did to the C&C franchise.

With the exception of Tiberium Wars, every post-Westwood C&C game has been a massive disappointment.

Another franchise would be Star Wars games. Back in the 90's it seemed that LucasArts could do no wrong. Well okay, they had a few lackluster releases (Yoda Stories, anyone?), but the good far outweighed the bad. The X-Wing series, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, Rebel Assault, Rogue Squadron...it was a veritable cornucopia of Star Wars goodness.

That all began to change around 2000, when LucasArts released a flood of mediocre to bad prequel tie-ins. There was a brief period around 2004-2006 when a few noteworthy Star Wars games were released (Battlefront 1&2, Lego Star Wars, Empire at War), but the series has fallen from grace again with releases like The Force Unleashed and the Clone Wars games.

Modern Star Wars games feel hollow and phoned-in nowadays. They're pretty much relying on brand-name recognition alone, much like the prequel films.

 

[BrionJames]

Final Fantasy, the last good game they made was IX. The rest have just been crap.

 

[daftalchemist]

I've played very few series games, aside from the obvious Zelda and Mario games. I guess the only series I've given up on is Pokemon. The first two generations were awesome. Stadium was awesome. Pokemon Pinball rocked right up until I somehow magically lost my cartridge and broke my own heart. But Ruby was a mess, and Pearl...just ugh. It was a major disappointment. Now I don't even care when they announce new games.

Yeah...

I was all into Pokemon during the Red/Blue days. I played the game religiously, trained and maxed out TONS of uber-powerful level 100s to challenge my friends with. When Gold/Silver came out, they introduced some interesting new gameplay elements, brought a lot more balance to the different types to prevent Psychic-type domination, and did away with glitches. The new Pokemon were cool and felt like a natural growth for the series. Also, there were minimal compatibility issues between Red/Blue and Gold/Sliver, so all my master Pokemon from Red/Blue were still viable. I loved it!

Ruby/Sapphire is when the series hit the wall hard for me (and from what I understand, many other old-school Pokemaniacs as well). That's when I realized that they were just going to keep adding creatures game after game and that the creatures were just gonna get weirder and weirder and now there's well OVER FIVE HUNDRED CREATURES if you wanna "Catch 'em all" and there's an "ice cream cone" Pokemon or something?

I've got two words for that noise...

Screw. That.

You mean to say you didn't love NOSEPASS?! But he's a NOSE POKEMON! Don't you get how clever it is?!

Gold/Silver's crew did feel like actual undiscovered Pokemon. They fit so well with everything else. And some of Ruby/Sapphire and beyond were good too (I love Furret forever), but for the most part it just seems like they're taking a body part/inanimate object and mixing it with an animal/alien/elemental. There's even a goth Pokemon now. A GOTH POKEMON! It's just too much.

 

[ShadowKatt]

Final Fantasy. What the fuck happened guys?

Can't believe this was post 7. SHould have been #2. Or 0, predating the OP because of the power of TRUTH.

Seriously though, XIII is getting two offshoots (Vs. and something else) AND a sequel, and no one will touch any of the decent ones except to remake them. With the same graphics.

FFX was good
FFX-2 had the best combat in the series, even if the story was bad
FFXII had the best sidequests, even if EVERYTHING else suffered
FFXIII was the worst in the series BY A WIDE MARGIN

I have high hopes for XIII Versus. More KH less FFXIII. I can live with that. As someone who bought XIII on release day, I hope versus can salvage this generation.

Kingdom Hearts is working on raising the same ire that Final Fantasy already has for me. SIX YEARS AGO Kingdom Hearts II came out, SIX YEARS I've been waiting for KH3, and instead we've been tossed a couple of crappy ass handheld knockoffs, ALL on different platforms. So not only do you not get the third installment(Half Life 3, anyone?), but you get to go out and buy multiple platforms for ONE game.

I'm sorry, but gaming by default runs on my disposable income, and my disposable income isn't enough to get one of every CONSOLE.

 

[Chemical Alia]

Uh, Sonic th...


...Ecco the Dolphin. Maybe another studio made that 3d one, but I just couldn't get down with it.

 

[RoyalSorceress]

The Spyro series. They took a perfectly good series and tried to make it "epic" thus upsetting fans everywhere. (And don't get get me started on the upcoming game.)

Oh dear god that upcoming thing they call "game". More like piece of shit. Why on earth would anyone buy a game with some gimmicky, errr, pedestal-thing? We buy games for the actual experience in-game, not some out of game gimmicks. When I heard that Spyro was being bought back again, I was hopeful for a good comeback. Thank you Activison for crushing my hopes.

Not to mention Spyro's new look.

 

[Zaik]

The only one I can really think of is Star Ocean.

1-3 is great, 4 was a shitstorm of suck and failure.

It's not really "destroyed", because it's just one really really bad game after three good ones, but it's the closest I can get.