Support NeoGAF

[Chairman Yang]

(Pictured above: Ace Combat Zero, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, Armored Core: Silent Line, and Mega Man Battle Network 3)

There was a special time, starting around the PS2 and ending around the 3DS, when primarily Japanese developers would produce iterative sequels at remarkable speed, thanks to a combination of reasonable development costs and lots of asset/engine re-use.

I didn't pay all that much attention to most of these games at the time. I'd maybe dip into and enjoy one or two from each series, then get fatigue from seeing samey-looking sequels, then forget about them. Reviewers and many players seemed to feel the same way.

I didn't realize how good we had it at the time.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the time and budget that's put into a lot of modern games, sometimes even in the same series (look at Ace Combat 7 and the new Armored Core). I know we have more DLC than ever before. But I do miss the trend of developers building on their knowledge and existing technology, hitting their stride, and focusing on creating lots of great, iterative gameplay.

What do you think? What were some of your favourite games/series that had this sort of flowering?

 

[EverydayBeast]

Sequels happen everyone else are making new games now it's a new IP.

 

[lh032]

now publishers/ game studios cranking out termination of employees

 

[diffusionx]

This was how it worked on PSX too, look at Square's output, Crash, Namco, Tomb Raider, Spyro, etc. These games had staffs of 20 people making a game for 12-18 months and could press them on a CD for a penny a disc and move on.

Just feels impossible to make a game these days. Like if Ubishit starts working on a new Assassins Creed that takes 4-5 years to make, how can you even reasonably predict what the industry is going to be like and what gamers are going to want by then? It's just crazy. Only Nintendo has some control over this because they own and are dominant in the platform the way other companies are not (Sony's games are not the most popular on Sony systems, etc.).

 

[Laptop1991]

Yes, like GTA and Bioshock, etc, you didn't have to wait years for a new game and they knew how to make games back then, sadly different now, up to 10 years to make or more and when they are released, a lot of the games are no where near as good as they use to be and take a few years to fix them for various reason's, so that's a yes from me.

 

[aclar00]

Have you seen how folk in just this forum react? If its any indication, there are three primary types:

The "OMG, same fucking assessts, same characters, just diff story, why should i pay $60 for this?"

Or

"The OMG is the same formula with just some diff or added features; im so tired of this series already, like didnt part one just come out 3 years ago"

Or

"OMG, this game only took 10 hours to beat...they should have spent 5 more years making it so it would be longer....i dont care if in my childhood i could beat a game like Resident Evil in under 3 hours, im talking about now..."

 

[Interfectum]

I think Sony is trying this with Spider-Man. Release main game, rapidly iterate to Miles Morales and Venom. I think more companies should try this.

 

[Wandering Leopard]

I think it's a combination of things, mainly:

1. some games are unnecessarily bloated
2. and making(increasingly) higher quality assets takes a whole lot of time.

 

[Phase]

Yes I completely miss it. During PS1-PS2 days you'd get 2 sometimes 3 sequels before a new console came out. They were more efficient and had smaller projects, to the great benefit of the consumer.

 

[FeralEcho]

Nowadays they crank out 20 patches in one month to fix the broken garbage they release after 5+ years of development....Ugh I miss the PS360 days so much...

Here's a sad fact for ya to get depressed...Rocksteady developed and released 3 complete Batman masterpieces in LESS time than they took to release 1 Suicide Squad..

 

[nush]

CD for a penny a disc

25 UK pence actually.

 

[lughnasadh123]

Considering the already staggering amount of things to play atm? No, not really.

 

[wvnative]

I do too, because most of them despite only having one or two year dev cycles, felt like bigger leaps each game than most of the sequels we get now.

 

[Shin-Ra]

I played through Abe's Exoddus (Abe2) fully for the first time recently and it surprised me how much longer and varied in platforming puzzles it is compared to the original. I think it was originally criticised for being an iterative sequel released one year after the first.

I didn't buy it originally because I struggled with Abe's Oddysee's (Abe1) difficulty and sparse checkpointing. Exoddus adds save-anywhere and quicksave.

Oddworld Inhabitants must've built a real expertise with their CG art and design tools and been inspired to do grander level layouts with longer range character-posessions.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[Danjin44]

Armored Core: Silent Line

We might get similar with ACVI as expansion rather than separate release.