Three things you hate about your favorite series.

[BoredAussieGamer]

Breaking Bad.
1: The massive delay between the first and second halves of season 5...
2: Saul Goodman doesn't have his own spin-off.
3: ... fuck. I got nothing for the third.

The Lego game series
1: Some of them (Pirates of the Caribbean) aren't as good as others.
2: Some annoying platforming moments in just about all the games.
3: The combat isn't really that challenging.

Deus Ex.
1: The original hasn't aged well.
2: Invisible War. Fucking Invisible War...
3: Human Revolution's terrible fucking boss fights.

[EDIT] Metal Gear.
1: The original Metal Gears haven't aged well.
2: MGS4's cutscenes were too fucking long.
3: MGS2 was a bit underwhelming.

That's all I can think of right now.

 

[Catrixa]

Elder Scrolls Series
I didn't play the first two, so I really can't comment, but I've played the snot out of Morrowind-Skyrim.
1) Removing over half the dang magic effects from Morrowind->Oblivion, then Oblivion->Skyrim. One of which was levitate. Same goes for what magic effect can be attached to what object. I freaking miss perma-levitate pants. I want them back.
2) Combat, kinda. I don't mind the combat in Oblivion/Skyrim (although I play it with a mouse/keyboard and never from 3rd person), but I wish the controls for Morrowind were a bit more fluid.
3) No markings for "radiant" quests (the ones that you just do endlessly). I'd rather have something tell me I'm just doing the same quest forever, as opposed to me doing the same quest forever, in an attempt to be done with a quest line, and coming to the realization that I've just done the same quest forever.

Pokemon
1) That there's no easy way to get all of them in the later generations. Not just the event ones, but all of them. I don't see why I can't trade someone in-game for every starter or something.
2) But, on the topic of event pokemon, I do not have the funds to fly to New York/Japan/wherever and get some random pokemon. I really wish there was, like, a wifi day for those (plus, I wasn't playing when Mew was released, so I'm pretty much screwed now).

 

[FalloutJack]

Only the delays. Still waiting on Persona 5.

 

[Dark Prophet]

Fallout

1. turn based combat and I just don't get along, in 1 and 2, I can't understand how can I miss something like 8 times in a row although my hit chance was always over 70%.
2. 3 and NV, all the glorious bugs, I know it's a fucking big game but come on, NV was nearly unplayable at launch.
3. Tacticas and that console exclusive one that could not play, although I heard it was pretty shit so I guess it's actually good that I haven't played it.

Mass Effect

1. planet scanning
2. in ME 2 they took so much RPG out of it that it was merely a shooter with some RPG bits.
3. the ending of ME3, not even the ending itself but the fact that almost non of your decisions mattered.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

1. the artifact system in CS and CoP lost all imagination
2. CoP although almost bug free was so small and you had to use the guides to travel between areas.
3. no way to repair your guns and stuff in SoC.

 

[Texas Joker 52]

MASS EFFECT

(1): The Multiplayer Unlock system. Random unlocks are always irritating as hell, and when you tend to want something, no matter what level of rarity it is, it always seems to take forever to unlock, at least in my case. The higher the rarity, the longer it takes. Seriously, Bioware, you can keep the random boxes, just give us the option to buy the weapons themselves on their own, if only for a higher cost!

(2): The fact that human romance scenes tend to be more drawn out and detailed than those with aliens. Ok, so they aren't human, big fucking deal. When all I get is a hand-hold from Tali, a headbump for Garrus, that's disappointing. At least Tali's romance was a little better in Mass Effect 2. Don't even get me started on 'Casual Garrus'. Wearing the turian equivalent of a smoking jacket and reading a book after, please.

(3): And lastly, the fact that the last missions on Earth didn't culminate into an extended Suicide Mission, only you got to coordinate your war assets for maximum effect. Now, the defense of the missile trucks wasn't too bad, it felt pretty intense at the end to me. But I'm sorry, the last mission's left a hell of a lot to be desired, regardless of the extremely lackluster ending. Damnit, Bioware, you forgot the saying, "Not with a whimper, but with a bang!"! I wanted Shepard to go out with a bang, if at all! But nope. Closest blaze-of-glory moment is given to Grunt, and although deserving, he still isn't Shepard.

HALO (mainly 4)

(1): This is actually for all but Halo 3, and Halo 4 is most definitely guilty of this, but 343? Make the Assault Rifle stand up against the other main rifles, like the Battle Rifle and DMR. In Halo 3, it was on par to the Battle Rifle, and in Reach, it was close to the DMR. But now, for Halo 4, I can rarely use it and get ahead. Everyone uses the Battle Rifle and DMR, and I'm getting kind of sick of the lack of variety. The Carbine doesn't stand much of a chance, the Light Rifle isn't much different, and apparently, automatics are shafted entirely unless its the SAW.

(2): The story of 4 is pretty good, I'll give it that, but it hinges a little too much on the extended universe. Now, I've read some of the earlier books. But some of the 'revelations' in Halo 4, such as humans having had a war with Forerunners before, and eventually becoming with the Prometheans, messed with my head a little since I didn't read the latest ones. "How did that happen? How long ago was this? If technologically advanced humans were around back then, why did we have to start all over again, and are where we are now with tech?". It was after watching the Terminal Videos in Waypoint (Yet another mistake, let them be watched in the game-proper, damnit!), that it made sense, and reconciled nicely.

Now, I'm all for incorporating the extended universe, so long as it's done well, and does not rely too much on the works outside of the games.

(3): LET ME PLAY AS A FUCKING ELITE. I don't care if you're supposed to play a Spartan, I don't care if they're the bad guys again in Halo 4, don't care. There are still some that are good, they are still aliens, and seriously, I was disappointed at the lack of Elite action for multiplayer.

Of course, I bring this up simply to pad out this particular list. Otherwise, I couldn't think of a third. What can I say, I love Halo.

Anyway, these are, mostly, minor gripes, since I love both series dearly.

 

[Legion]

I don't really have a single favourite series but I shall mention this one.

Mass Effect and Dragon Age -

This one applies to ME 2,3 and Dragon Age 2. The first games weren't so bad. Too many developer created actions by the player character. The character has to have a reason to fight the bad guys, and obviously cannot do absolutely anything, but in these three games they lack so much player agency at times you may as well be playing as an established character like you do in non-RPG's. They will say things without prompting, react to things that the player might have the opposite reaction to, apparently do things off camera that other characters mention.

The developer constantly talks about things such as the player "shaping the story" and "making decisions with major consequences" but most of them have a very small impact. A few lines of dialogue or a slightly different reward being about the extent of it. In itself it wouldn't be an issue, but the fact that they use it as a selling point really irritates me.

The games get increasingly simple as the series progress. I am not talking about "dumbing down" because games do not need to be complex to be good. I mean that there is less customisation and variety. For example, rather than fixing things such as the poor inventory designs or vehicle controls, they just remove them. They decide to start concentrating on making the games more action packed, despite them not being the main reasons people liked the series to begin with.

Halo -

Lack of innovation. Halo 1 had the best campaign in my opinion. Halo 2 had the best multiplayer. Since then the games have lacked any real improvements or innovation. Halo 4 I am enjoying to an extent, but three new enemies and a handful of weapons, most of which are more or less the same as the human/covenant counterparts anyway, it's just a waste of potential.

The story to the Halo series is quite deep. The story to the Halo games is "Go here and blow stuff up to stop the bad guy destroying the whole galaxy". It is frustrating to see such potential for a story to be wasted on making such simple and unimaginative plots.

What I consider to be "false difficulty levels". The enemies don't act smarter on higher levels. They don't use better abilities and take cover more often. They just get their health magically increased and despite them using the same weapons as you, they do more damage than yours. They could make enemies more likely to throw grenades, more likely to use cover when their shields are down, more likely to chase you when injured, but they don't.

Gears of War -

Same point as my second one for Halo. Great lore, terrible game plots. Plus the writing is pretty atrocious too.

The setting for the first game was fantastic. A ruined city full of gothic architecture. It looked great. The second games were basically vista's with shooting to join them together. The level designs were not smooth at all, just full of contrived and convenient cover. In the first game it was fallen pillars and ruined cars, which at least made sense.

The mulitplayer has some serious issues in regards to both the gnasher shotguns consistency (sometimes it kills from insane ranges, other times does no damage point blank). As well as the fact that explosions do not work in a realistic manner. If you throw an explosive towards three people with only one in range, and the other two just outside; all three will die because the grenade tends to "chain" explosive damage.

 

[TJC]

I have too many series that I consider my favorites to bother with so I think I will just go with one for now.

The Legend of Zelda:
2.The fact that the third Oracle game was scrapped.

I like you very much. Seriously, "Oracle of Secrets" needed to happen :c

 

[sextus the crazy]

Fire Emblem:

1. Bland, do-good main characters
2. Some balancing problems
3. low sales leads to JP-only games

The Fire Emblem GBA games all have the same problem. They're difficult until you do as much as touch the Arena or the Tower of Valni, at which point the games become RIDICULOUSLY EASY.

Tower of Valni does make Sacred Stones really easy, but the arena is a whole different matter. Let's face it, if you're not using save states, its really hard to abuse the arena (unless you use the ninis grace trick). And in the harder difficulties (anything but Eliwood normal mode), the arena costs (and therefore the difficulty of the opponents) skyrockets. In Eliwood hard mode, the arena in chapter 20 cost around 1000 gold to use and without ninis grace every one of my characters would die. Arena abuse is really only possible on the easiest difficulty.

I played through Eliwood Normal and Hector's modes, and I didn't find the Arena that hard to abuse.

Some classes I hardly had to heal while they did the Arena, mostly units like 20/1 Serra and Rath. Others I couldn't do the arena with, these units being the heavier ones, like Oswin and Dorcas. Oswin would just miss against pretty much everyone (and when promoted he only went against silver weapon wielding opponents) and when promoted they would just get unlucky and be one shot by swordmasters or beserkers who crit.

And to be clear; I didn't emulate Rekka No Ken (no save states), The Binding Blade I used savestates in so I could train up Roy and dump him to the side (I didn't like using him, don't know why) and Sacred Stones was emulated but I didn't use savestates.

Yeah, classes do make a difference in easiness (generally, high-damage, dodge tanks like the ones you mentioned before are good at taking the arena).

I'm guessing you don't like using Roy because he's as bad a unit as his father. That's why I used the chapter 16/16x Roy Promotion patch when I played Fuin no Tsurugi. Because suddenly roy becomes as good as the rest of your units.

I usually use savestates, but mostly because I hate having to replay large sections of the game (or any game) over again. I don't use them too much though. Mostly on those really hard ROM hacks (oops, tautology!).

 

[JasonKaotic]

Final Fantasy for me...

1) The fanbase. Not the whole thing. I'm part of it. But you all probably know exactly what I'm talking about.
2) Everything released after FFX (Well, I didn't actually dislike XIII. And Dirge of Cerberus was good. Haven't played XIII-2. But everything else makes me cry inside.)
3) The region exclusivity on their old games. Square wouldn't even give us freakin' Chrono Trigger. Seriously, Square, why do you hate Europe? What did we ever do to you?

 

[Proeliator]

Halo: (first game) Hey this game is pretty cool! This could go somewhere...
1. Dual wielding was a nice experiment, but got annoying. and then there's the pistol...
2. 343 industries (and Microsoft for that matter)for not trying hard enough to make an awesome game.
3. Becoming more like Call of Duty. This is not why I buy Halo. I'd by black ops if I wanted that...

Call of Duty: Hey this Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare was pretty slick! Where do they go from here?

1. Prestige taking away all you gun attachment unlocks. I would probably do it if when I re-reached the appropriate level, all the previously unlocked attachments came back with the gun.

2. Becoming too kill-streak focused and gag-heavy: all we need is to shoot guns at people. Vehicles are for a different kind of game, like Halo or battlefield. Everything should revolve around that shooting part, not the shooting part revolving around the kill-streaks.

3. Modern Warfare 3 being stagnant and more like black ops* 1.5 than Modern Warfare.

*and Black Ops not feeling like black ops at all, more like a Gritty John Wayne movie.

 

[his1nightmare]

Well, I guess that would be the Diablo series/franchise, with all its appealing content.

1. Diablo 3
2. everything connected to Diablo 3 that has not Diablo in its name
3. Diablo 3's Lore Books... they made me HATE any kind of in-action voice-over... HATE; innocent Borderlands 2 became almost unplayable

 

[HaraDaya]

Everything past the first generation of F.E.A.R.

1. Tactical elements got pushed aside for the horror aspect.
2. The intelligent AI that sold the series for me got dumbed down.
3. Turret segments.

Far Cry 2

1. The weapon degradation system. I like when gun jams on you if you don't maintain them. But in Far Cry 2 it's toss and grab a new one once your weapons starts looking rusty. What a waste.
2. Your reputation doesn't change when you're killing everyone horribly everywhere. But completing missions do. (it does feel nice when you're at max reputation and the enemies start acting really fekken terrified of you)
3. No way to fire a one-handed weapon while driving. Imagine your M79 against those damn stubborn jeeps.

 

[likalaruku]

Not my absolute favorite, but the first one that came to mind when I read this question is the Dungeon Siege franchise.

The games lack consistency, especially the last one. I remember weighing the pros & cons of how different 2 was from 1. I'm one of those rare gamers who actually likes "more of the same." You point me in the direction of a "FTP WoW clone" or "Diablo Killer" or "generic RPGMaker game" & I'll play it.

Another thing I don't like about it is that I can't get the first game to run on Windows 7.

 

[The_Lost_King]

Not sure what my favorite series is so I will list the top 3 contenders
Dragon Age:
1. Dragon Age 2
2. The Fade
3. How short Awakening was

Mass Effect:
1. Ending
2. Barely got to use Legion
3. Not being able to use Wrex or Legion in me3

wow, that was hard

The Elder Scrolls:
1. No spell making in Skyrim
2. The Faces look terrible until Skyrim
3. Morrowind is hard to get into so I am having trouble playing the "best" ES game

They will say things without prompting, react to things that the player might have the opposite reaction to, apparently do things off camera that other characters mention.

Oh yeah. All I can think of is in DA2 when my Hawke was a blood mage and he always hated blood magic and I though What the Fuck!

 

[370999]

Tales of. By far my favourite series, but picking out three things I hate is easy.

1: Few games hit Europe.
2: Late releases in Europe.
3: They take ages to announce if a game is coming to Europe or not leaving us hoping to get a game, then only finding out when the next Tales of game is coming out that we're probably not getting it.

Yeah, the games are great and I don't really have any complaints about them by themselves.

What about the save circles, those piss me off royally, when I get beaten and then get thrown all the way back to the circle at the beginning of the dungeon-(Tales of Symphona with both the boss of the wind temply and then the resolute assain)?

Never really bothered me. It's such a minor thing and it's not like I got stuck on either of those bosses anyway. It's also not something the series is known for doing and even in Tales of Symphonia it's not a common occurrence. Compared to not getting the game at all having to walk through a dungeon twice in order to be prepared for a boss I didn't know would show up is actually enjoyable. However I guess that I am stupid for not hating an entire series for a minor issue with one of the games in the same series.

Wasn't implying you were.

I dunno, it was when I was trying to get Colette's "Friendship First" Title so I was reloading on a quasi-regular basis (Damm you Kvar!)