Franchises with wasted potential

J

JaxJag

Banned
After playing the original Star Fox on SNES, I assumed Nintendo had a giant new franchise on their hands.

The Sequel, Star Fox 64, looked to only solidify Star Fox as Nintendo's newest juggernaut. Then boom, the franchise has just been wasted ever since. The remake on the 3DS is good, but it's only a remake and not a new entry. Obviously we will see Star Fox games in the future, but there's no telling how long until we see another installment of the Star Fox franchise that rivals the original two.

With the popularity of online gaming booming right now, and the issues with NBA Live, I'm amazed that the NBA Street franchise is dormant.

The first two NBA Street games had amazingly fun multiplayer, and I felt it was the logical evolution of the NBA Jam/arcade basketball genre. But then NBA Street 3 came out, disappointed, and the franchise has been forgotten about ever since.
 
Killzone is the first thing that comes to my mind.

I felt that Killzone 2 and 3 were really fun games to play, and they looked amazing, but the story and dialogue were just a disaster. If they nailed the writing, I think they would have been incredible games. As it stands they were just good games.

Another Sony franchise comes to mind as well. Motorstorm. Again, they looked amazing, but the first two games got ridiculously difficult, to the point where it ruined the game for many people. A real shame, because they were great otherwise.


Oh, and Nintendo has a handful of great franchises they've just squandered and left behind.
 
Top 3:

Killzone 2 and 3 for its story and characters.

Halo 4 for its new enemy type and their weapons.

Mass Effect 3 for it becoming a TPS with dialogue options rather than being a RPG. And the ending.
 
Practically every JRPG franchise from the ps1 and ps2 era outside of a remote few. Yes I am somewhat bitter.

If I had to list a few major ones, it would have to be

Suikoden, Breath of fire, Shadow hearts, Grandia and Lunar I guess. There are a ton of others but these are a good start.
 
Conker's Bad Fur Day :/

Chris even had the premise for the sequel.

He spends all the treasury money on beer, parties and hookers. Thrown into prison, Conker is faced with the prospect of execution and the game starts with his escape, ball and chain attached, from the Castles highest tower.
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BruiserBear said:
Killzone is the first thing that comes to my mind.

I felt that Killzone 2 and 3 were really fun games to play, and they looked amazing, but the story and dialogue were just a disaster. If they nailed the writing, I think they would have been incredible games. As it stands they were just good games.
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Killzone 2 is the best FPS of this gen. Story def has loads of potential though...

AC is the biggest wasted potential of this gen.
 
Are we talking about a waste as in "a company should have capitalized on this awesomeness but didnt" or "this game had some good ideas but didnt quite hit it with me personally"
 
The Resistance franchise had so much potential. The mystery surrounding the alternate WWII historical/sci-fi was something fresh in a FPS. Insomniac included some pretty sweet weapons like the Auger as well.

Unfortunately Resistance 2 was overall pretty disappointing and I lost interest by the time 3 came along. I hear Resistance 3 is the best in the series... I'll give it a try if it gets released on as PSN game on PS4/PS+.
 
Animal Crossing, so far. I love the series but they could do a lot more with it.

Still want that 3DS one NOA
 
Oshimai said:
The Resistance franchise had so much potential. The mystery surrounding the alternate WWII historical/sci-fi was something fresh in a FPS. Insomniac included some pretty sweet weapons like the Auger as well.

Unfortunately Resistance 2 was overall pretty disappointing and I lost interest by the time 3 came along. I hear Resistance 3 is the best in the series... I'll give it a try if it gets released on as PSN game on PS4/PS+.
Click to expand...

Resistance 3 is a great game and is easily the best in the series. The atomizer alone makes it the best in the series. Def try it if it hits plus.
 
Socom

Once the golden child for PlayStation's online brand only to be swept under the rug in favor of Sony's many failed attempts at capturing the Halo market with Killzone and Resistance.
 
Sorcerer Supreme said:
Socom

Once the golden child for PlayStation's online brand only to be swept under the rug in favor of Sony's many failed attempts at capturing the Halo market with Killzone and Resistance.
Click to expand...


To be fair, they did make further attempts post socom 3 to keep it going, all the games just weren't very good. Think there were like 3 or 4 entries into the series after 3 that just didn't catch on.
 
Mass Effect.

Richly detailed and interesting lore littered with extraterrestrial species and history, spanning an entire galaxy begging for planetary globe trotting and discovery of mysterious alien paradises lost to time.

Lore sullied by awful writing with a boner for all things human, and a linear adventure bottlenecked through heavily populated war zones, familiar architecture, and planetary comfort blankets.
 
No One Lives Forever , should have been at least 1 or 2 more sequels . It is a fresh breath of air out of current FPS really :(
 
Mother/Earthbound: NoA's strange hate of this series boggles my mind.
NBA/NFL Street: I agree with the OP, these games are really great. However, they released too many too quickly and then killed the franchise. This doesn't have to be a yearly series at all and it can still be successful.
Chrono: The two games in this series were universally acclaimed for their incredible gameplay, then completely dropped.
 
The Crysis series. Instead of moving forward with Crysis 2, the series took a couple of steps back, which I found really disappointing considering how much I loved the first game.
 
It's surely Crysis.


I don't think I've seen a game go from such an amazing first game to a sequel so utterly awful since Invisible War
 
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