Ever felt let down by a franchise?

[lisalover1]

Every Final Fantasy after 7. They were getting better from 4 to 5 to peeking at 6. 7 was kind of a plateau then the whole series fell off the side of the cliff and has been rolling down hill since.

Blasphemy; Final Fantasy IX was amazing.

[the7k]

Street Fighter. Street Fighter IV was such a huge step backwards, both in mechanics and presentation, compared to Street Fighter III - or even Street Fighter Alpha. I seriously felt the $15 I spent on SF2HD was much better spent than the $60 I spent on SF4... and I already own multiple versions of SF2.

Deus Ex. Deus Ex 2 simplified the combat and other aspects of the game so much that it made me feel dirty after playing.

Soul Calibur, Which each game, it seems to be degrading more and more. SC4 would have actually been better than SC3 in my eyes... except that they got rid of Chronicles of the Sword, what I believed to be the best single-player component in a fighting game ever, in favor of that uninspired Tower crap. That coupled with the disastrous online play... ugh.

Grand Theft Auto. I really wanted to see GTA go 3D as a kid... and when it finally happened, I was initially excited, but then disappointed when I realized it was just as linear as the barrel of a gun. They can call the game an open-world adventure all they want, but until the drop the Hollywood crap and make it like the old GTAs, it's still going to feel like I'm just being dragged from one point to another.

Final Fantasy. They lost the magic due to a combination of no Sakaguchi and Enix taking over the joint. The characters are no longer memorable, basically - and that's the biggest problem. The characters are the only reason we pretend that the story is interesting, and they're the only reason we can stand to grind for hours. Even people who haven't played any Final Fantasy games could list off at least 10 characters from FF7-9, and maybe even the earlier ones. I just don't see the same happening with this generation.

[Mr.White555]

Call of Duty. As a person who played the first one when it came out PC it was aggravating to see the later installments to be tailored for consoles. I wanted the series to expand on what was done in United Offensive but that sure as hell didn't happen. Now we have this arcade-ish farce that is Modern Warfare 2. Now my gripes with the series is limited to the multilayer. Single player is a blast.

[crux]

I think a better question is the franchises that haven't let us down.

[Mr.White555]

I think a better question is the franchises that haven't let us down.

Ghouls 'n' Ghosts
Battletoads

[Jrecee]

Wow. I agree with every game listed so far. It seems that with almost every series/franchise it starts well, improves a little then steadily drops in quality. Except maybe Rayman, cant think of a bad Rayman game at the moment.

Mario has remained high quality. Obviously there's the spinoffs but that happens with most games. But the core releases have been mostly flawless.

[Weekend_Warrior]

Even though Mortal Kombat is my favorite video game series, it has certainly let me down a bunch of times.

Mortal Kombat (MK1) home ports - Genesis had the blood but the graphics and sound were shit. The SNES port had almost arcade-perfect visuals and sound but lacked the gore and the gameplay was off. Sega then tried to improve the MK game with a Sega CD version which had all the arcade sounds but it added long load times and still looked like ass.

Mortal Kombat II (Arcade) - Despite its greatness, I was not totally impressed with the game at first. Obviously, the first thing I noticed was that the "near-photo realistic" graphics of the original game had been thrown out in favor of a much more animated and cartoonish look. That didn't sit too well with me for awhile. But that of course was until I actually started to get more into the game and learned all the new characters, special moves and multiple fatalities.

Mortal Kombat II (Saturn/PS1) - These ports really should have been arcade perfect. It's amazing how they managed to fuck them up.

Mortal Kombat III (Arcade) - Good game, but where the hell did Scorpion, Raiden, Johnny Cage and a lot of the new characters introduced in MK2 - Baraka, Mileena, Kitana - go? And what's up with this "Run" button? Thankfully, Ultimate MK3 was released later and had all those characters. But it still couldn't erase the memory of the original MK3 and how, like MK2, it was also a bit of a disappointment.

Mortal Kombat 4 (Arcade) - Nice try. But it was pretty much a piece of shit

Mortal Kombat: Deception (PS2/Xbox/GCN) - A good sequel to MK: Deadly Alliance (which I liked a lot) but I fucking HATED the "Hara Kiris!" Especially because you didn't have the option to turn them off. It ruined a good part of the game for me. The replay value on this one is very low because of it.

Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe (PS3/360) - A censored MK that came directly from the MK studio? You gotta be fucken shitting me! Sure, the inclusion of Batman and Superman is cool.. but in an MK game with little violence? Um, no.


Despite all these disappointments and low points for the series, I still love the MK franchise and am psyched about the upcoming MK "re-boot" on PS3/360.

Thankfully, there's been enough high points throughout the years to keep me interested.

MK high points for me:
Mortal Kombat (Arcade) - Still my fav. game ever. It changed my life. Spent the next decade in arcades
Mortal Kombat II (SNES & Sega 32X ports) - Nowhere near "arcade perfect" but still damn good
Mortal Kombat III (SNES & PS1 ports) - Again, very good ports. Especially the PS1
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (Arcade) - Better late than never. Added lost characters & was faster
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (Saturn) - Really, really close to "arcade perfect." LOVED IT!
Mortal Kombat Trilogy (N64) - Most preferred the PS1 ver. but I liked this one. No load times!
Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (PS2) - Awesome graphics, multiple fight styles, cool new fatality animations
Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (PS2) - Loved the "create a fatality" feature and having every MK character in the game

[Para]

Although I totally agree with pretty much everyone on here about the previous listed things, especially Sonic, Street Fighter and Soul Calibur.

Street Fighter 2 has to be one of my favorite games of all time. I think I have spent more time playing that game (in its many versions) than any other game ever. But I agree with all the points already said so I won't beat a dead horse.

One thing that I think most people will agree with but hasn't been brought up is the Mega Man series. Mega Man was amazing. Most of the games just followed a simple formula and the sequels weren't that innovative until the X series (which was still basically the same game, just a little more bad ass) but that was just fine and everyone loved it.

I guess they got tired of making good games because as soon as it left the Super Nintendo (with the exception of a few game boy games), Mega Man got really shitty. It took years of crap for them to realize that no one wants to play this new shit anymore so they finally took a step in the right direction and released Mega Man 9; the first good Mega Man game in years. Although having to pay to play as Proto Man was a fucking joke, the game for the most part was pretty solid.

I'm not sure what it is about the game but Mega Man 10 wasn't very good in my opinion. I kind of get the feeling from the unimaginative bosses and boring level design that the game was rushed and just meant to cash in on the retro phase. Not as good as 9, or anywhere close to the old ones, but it still beats the hell out of anything after Mega Man X3.

Also I am/was a huge Mortal Kombat fan too and I wanted to mention that Shaolin Monks was an awesome game.

[AwesomeMonstar]

Street Fighter. Street Fighter IV was such a huge step backwards, both in mechanics and presentation, compared to Street Fighter III - or even Street Fighter Alpha. I seriously felt the $15 I spent on SF2HD was much better spent than the $60 I spent on SF4... and I already own multiple versions of SF2.


Soul Calibur, Which each game, it seems to be degrading more and more. SC4 would have actually been better than SC3 in my eyes... except that they got rid of Chronicles of the Sword, what I believed to be the best single-player component in a fighting game ever, in favor of that uninspired Tower crap. That coupled with the disastrous online play... ugh.

As much as I'm sure I'm going against the idea of this thread, I'd like to expand upon these two games in particular, especially because I've always found your thoughts on fighting games particularly insightful in the past.

Now SFIV, I can understand why people say it's a step backwards in terms of mechanics, especially since third strike is often places as the most refined, perfect fighting game of all time, but what did you find wrong about the presentation, while I'm on the topic do you also think that SSFIV was a misstep for the series?

As for Soul Caliber, I whole heartedly agree that the "tower crap" was not only a lazy substitute for the series normal robust and entertaining single player game play (something I find exceedingly rare in fighting games, which makes this mistake sting all the worse), but also completely forgettable. However, I have not trifled with online play on SCIV, only head to head with friends and found the game extremely enjoyable that way, and as somebody who I believe has often defended KOFXI for the same reason (though I could be wrong), do you think that it is still a good game at it's core?


Also, to keep things going smoothly here for this thread, Call of Duty has been dissapointing me ever since 2, sonic since adventure, midway since abandoning the smash tv/ total carnage franchise (not fair, I know.) and silent hill since 2.

[Para]

For starters Street Fighter four has graphics that resemble something that the Dreamcast is capable of. The levels are absolutely horrible. The music is alright but the announcer is the worst announcer for anything I've ever heard.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed but when you choose a character it shows a big hand drawn portrait of them in the background. Every character is done this way except Zangief for some reason. Its just an in-game screenshot posted in place of where the hand drawn version should be. I guess they got lazy and/or they are retarded but he is this way in Street Fighter 4 and Super Street Fighter 4. Its not a big deal but I think I have OCD because it really bothers me every time I see it.

Even the iPhone version is the same way. Apparently he is really hard to draw.