What is the black sheep of a franchise

[KingofMadCows]

Command and Conquer 4 - No explanation needed.

Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain - It's not a bad game but it's filled with plotholes since the game was originally supposed to be a sequel to Chakan but they decided to make it a Legacy of Kain game in the middle of development.

Heroes of Might and Magic IV - I think it's a good game and the campaigns are very well written, but the fans are really divided.

 

[mattyg118]

has there been another castlevania game in the style of SOTN?

aslo why isnt Symphony of the night on PSN? I was soo disapointed

Oh dear god you have been missing out.
Almost all handheld Castlevania games have since followed in that direction, Dawn of Sorrow even has an Alucard mode!:
Circle of the Moon (GBA)
Harmony of Dissonance (GBA)
Aria of Sorrow (GBA)
Dawn of Sorrow (DS)
Portrait of Ruin (DS)
Order of Ecclesia--for the most part (DS)

Also, Curse of Darkness and Lament of Innocence on the PS2 have an exploration style similar to SOTN with the former being much better in that regard. Lords of Shadow is the only one I would consider markedly different from the SOTN style.

I should also note that SOTN is on PSN for 9.99. I think it was the first game I downloaded ( along with the badass theme).

 

[Vault101]

has there been another castlevania game in the style of SOTN?

aslo why isnt Symphony of the night on PSN? I was soo disapointed

Oh dear god you have been missing out.
Almost all handheld Castlevania games have since followed in that direction, Dawn of Sorrow even has an Alucard mode!:
Circle of the Moon (GBA)
Harmony of Dissonance (GBA)
Aria of Sorrow (GBA)
Dawn of Sorrow (DS)
Portrait of Ruin (DS)
Order of Ecclesia--for the most part (DS)

Also, Curse of Darkness and Lament of Innocence on the PS2 have an exploration style similar to SOTN with the former being much better in that regard. Lords of Shadow is the only one I would consider markedly different from the SOTN style.

I should also note that SOTN is on PSN for 9.99. I think it was the first game I downloaded ( along with the badass theme).

hmmm..this might require further investigation on my part :/

 

[Zhukov]

Metroid Other M and Deus Ex: Invisible War.

Also, I'd bet money that Bioshock 2 will become that game that nobody bothers to mention after infinite comes out.

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

Fallout: POS is just so bad. Why did I have to be reminded of it?

 

[Orks da best]

Halo Wars. Completely fucked over the timeline; the Flood were only discovered on Halo. Also RTS and that bullshit.

well if you recall at the end of the game the spirit of fire and its crew were put into stasis and have since never be found, they were the first ones to learn of the flood, but have not returned to human space.

also I find the gameplay enjoyable, but in short bursts at best.

but it is the worse game of the halo series so far.

 

[omglazorspewpew]

I always found the DS Zelda games to be the black sheep of the franchise, mainly because there was something about them that felt... off. Like they weren't Zelda games.

Weird, I am the exact opposite of you, I am more than happy to play any of the handheld Zelda games but I don't think I have cared about a console Zelda game since Ocarina of Time. The Console ones don't feel Zelda-y to me, but then again I grew up playing A Link To The Past which is what the handheld games feel like.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was very WTF to me, since it is pretty much all about the combat and a handful of puzzles instead of a focus on exploration/puzzle solving with some combat mixed in.

The Guilty Gear series also had a couple of WTF moments for me. First being Guilty Gear Izuka, it felt like the Smash Brothers version of GG. It also had a beat-em up added to it (ala Tekken 3) which focused on a single character (robo-ky). This was then expanded upon again in GG: Dust Strikers for the DS. Then they departed again from the fighting game system when they switched to a Dynasty Warriors style action game on the Xbox 360 with GG: Overture.

 

[ResonanceGames]

The Elder Scrolls: Battlespire. Granted, there's also Redguard, but I hear that game is at least decent. Battlespire was the combat from Daggerfall dropped into a tiny, enclosed environment. Why someone at Bethesda thought that would be a good idea, I'll never know.

 

[Twilight_guy]

The Legend of Zelda CD-i games. The most black sheep of all gaming black sheep.

 

[Broady Brio]

Tekken 4.

It was the transitional game from PS1-PS2. (I don't count Tekken Tag Tournament because only the graphics were changed for the PS2 version.) Tekken 4 on the other hand changed the gameplay such as adding ceilings to some stages and sloped grounds.

It's certainly the weakest game out of the series. Either that or 6.

 

[VoidWanderer]

I know I am probably going to get some flak to this, but Uncharted 3.

It had the same high quality environments that all the other Uncharted games had. But, Nathan Drake gives NO actual reason, other than Francis Drake was there. His old mentor was getting dragged along and even though he was cautioned that Sully won't be around for ever, he just shrugs. It was the weakest story of the games so far, and I HATED how Nathan kept reaching out to touch the walls for NO reason.

When I found out that the developers came up with the big set piece sand then strung it together, which perfectly explains the crapiness of the story.

 

[Rhaff]

Command and Conquer 4 - No explanation needed.

I'm sad to say that I agree with you there. I love the series, and have been dying to find out the truth about Kane, but I just can't get my self to play the utter piece of shit.

Tekken 4.

It was the transitional game from PS1-PS2. (I don't count Tekken Tag Tournament because only the graphics were changed for the PS2 version.) Tekken 4 on the other hand changed the gameplay such as adding ceilings to some stages and sloped grounds.

It's certainly the weakest game out of the series. Either that or 6.

Is it just me, or didn't the controls and characters in 4 feel really slugish compared to tag-tournament and even 3?

Deus Ex Invisible War

THIS is the poster child for consolisation, complete mess of a game. Thanks xbox.

OI! The xbox was sweet.

But yeah, its a black sheep alright. Still quite good though. I just think everyone hated it because the first game set the bar SO GODDAMN HIGH!

No the game is a mess technically, I could enjoy the game if it just le me fucking play it.

Tiny levels with loading screens EVERYWHERE that close the .exe and reopen it again to move to a new cell meaning you spent 1/4 of all your time loading bloody levels.

Well yeah, the game was a mess, but given a little more time and streamlining of stuff (like the loading thing) it could have been quite a solid game, not fantastic, but not bed either. It just really suffers from trying to fill the originals shoes.

 

[OneCatch]

You know a game which not exactly overhalls the series just...diffrent

I know am in a fallout high but have to say brotherhood of steel is one of the biggest wtf I ever had.

See, I though Fallout Tactics was a pretty weird addition to that series!

 

[Cyrus Hanley]

RIP authentic atmospheric Japanese horror. Hello mundane American survival horror action flick.*sad Sigh*

That "authentic atmospheric Japanese horror" was heavily influenced by American horror.

 

[BiggyShackleton]

Majora's Mask, just because after all of the (fairly) cutesy-ness of OoT and WW you get this game which is pretty fucking grim in places. That said it's still my favourite LoZ game ever.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Zelda 2, easy. Yet it's actually my favourite in the series. I'd call Castlevania 2 a black sheep as well but, once the series hit SoTN, it actually ended up being an early glimpse at more of what the series would become later on.

has there been another castlevania game in the style of SOTN?

aslo why isnt Symphony of the night on PSN? I was soo disapointed

Well, there hasn't been a proper 2D Castlevania for consoles since SOTN, unless you couunt the oddity of that multiplayer time trial thing that came out a couple years back. Every Castlevenia release on the handhelds since SOTN, and there have been a bunch of them, have all had the same basic style as SOTN. Even the 3D Castlevania sequels post-SOTN have used a more Metroidish open world and backtrack approach.

And SOTN isn't on the PSN? Thst'd odd. It's been on XBL for ages.

 

[esperandote]

The king of fighters has many Maximum Impact 1 and 2 (2006), 2003 (for some), XII oh god.

Silent Hill Homecoming, a fairly good game but it lacked Silent Hill atmosphere.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Phantasy Star III. Who can forget the futuristic space medieval game that has notheing to do with the series?

Later in the game it does develop ties to the main series, and the medieval aspect wasn't at all consistent throughout the entire game (heck, your first compantion is an Android and some of the earlier quests involve messing around with a weather controlling system that has malfunctioned).

It did certainly feel a little different from the others in the series, but I think it's a bit of a stretch to say it has nothing to do with the series. It also had the cool Generations system which is something I hoped at the time that more games would use.